Last evening members of VUW’s champion DebSoc entertained Cathy and me among former Weir House residents attending Weir’s 75th anniversary reunion . The moot was something like "I gained my real education at Weir House".

The debate was not intended to be challenging (and succeeded) but parts of it were very funny.

Myriad references to drunkenness were less entertaining than the two serious debates the Society offered during the election campaign, when the student debaters generally outshone the candidates (me included).

The Spectator has a good line from newspaper executive Jeremy O’Grady

"…a man taking a woman out to dinner is paying to facilitate her desire for him. When he hires a prostitute he’s paying for the absence of her desire for him. "

and characteristic lines from Germaine Greer:

"There are worse things to sell, she said, than your body. ‘Your child, your kidney, your soul.’ In comparison with ‘the whole panoply of exploitation that is the consumer society, prostitution is honest and innocent’"

The feature that most interested me was the audience adjudication.

"Votes
Before the debate
For 134
Against 341
Don’t Know 221

After the debate
For 203
Against 449
Don’t Know 45"

I"d like to see more debates that change opinions. US presidential TV debates do not insult intelligence but our leaders’ TV debates are shame-inducing.